“Blood,” whispered the detective and gingerly lifted the flat steel.
There was no doubt about it. Though the handle was clean, the lower wards appeared as though they had been dipped in blood.
“This disposes of the suicide theory,” said Carver.
His first search was for the pistol which had obviously slain the man. There was no sign of any weapon. He passed his hand under the limp body and Tab shivered to see the head drop wearily to the shoulder.
“Nothing there—shot through the body too. Suicides seldom do it that way.”
His quick fingers searched the silent figure. There was nothing of any value.
Carver straightened himself and stood, fist on hip, surveying the dreadful sight.
“He was standing here when he was shot—he never knew what killed him. As a faked suicide it is inartistic—part from the absence of weapon, the old man was shot in the back.”
If there were any doubts on the subject they were set at rest when the doctor made his brief examination.
“He was shot at the range of about two yards,” he said. “No, Mr. Carver, it is impossible that he should have committed suicide, there is no burning whatever. Besides, the bullet has entered the back, just beneath the left shoulder and of course, death must have been instantaneous. It is impossible that the wound can have been self-inflicted.”
Again came the police photographers, and after they had gone, leaving the vault thick with the mist of exploded magnesium, the two men were left to their search. The first boxes were, for the main part, filled with money. There was very little gold, but a great deal of paper of various nationalities. In one box Carver found five million francs in thousand franc notes, another was packed with English five pound notes, another was full of hundred dollar bills fastened in packets of ten thousand. Only two of these boxes were locked and only one that they looked at that night contained anything in the nature of documents. For the most part they were old leases, receipts painted on thin paper in Chinese characters and which they only knew were receipts because somebody had written a translation on their backs. They were bracketed neatly in folders, on each of which was described in a fine flowing hand, the nature of its contents.
On one thick bundle fastened with rubber bands was an old label: “Trading correspondence, 1899.”
In his search Tab, who was looking through the box, found a folded manuscript which he brought out.
“Here is his will,” he said, and Carver took it from him. It was written in the crabbed boyish hand which Tab had come to know so well and it was very short. After the conventional preamble, it went on:
“I leave my property and effects whatsoever, to my nephew, Rex Percival Lander, the only son of my deceased sister, Mary Catherine Lander, née Trasmere, and I appoint him sole executor of this my will.”
It was witnessed by Mildred Green, who described herself as a cook, and by Arthur Green, whose description of his profession was valet. Their addresses were Mayfield.
“I think those are the two servants the old man discharged for pilfering some six months ago. The will must have been executed a few weeks before they left.”
Tab’s first feeling was one of pleasure that at last his friend was a rich man. Poor Rex, little did he dream that he would come into his inheritance in so tragic a fashion.
Carver put the document back into the box and continued the examination of the door which Tab had interrupted.
“It isn’t a spring lock, you notice,” he said. “So, therefore, it couldn’t have been slammed by a murderer who first shot Trasmere and then made his escape. It has to be locked either from the inside or the outside. If there was any reasonable possibility of Trasmere having shot himself, the solution would have been simple. But he did not shoot himself. He was shot here, the door was locked upon him and the key returned to the table—how?” He took the key and tried one of the air-holes of the ventilator. The point of the key scarcely entered. “There must be some other entrance to the vault,” he said.
The sun was up before they finished their examination of the room. The walls were solid. There was neither window nor fireplace. The floor was even more substantial than the walls.
In a last hopeless endeavor to solve the mystery, Carver called in an expert to inspect the ventilator. It was made of steel, a quarter of an inch thick, and fastened into the door itself. There were no screws with which it could have been taken out and even if it had been removed, only the tiniest of mortals could have crept through.
“Still,” said Carver, “if we could suppose that the ventilator was removable, we might have taken a leaf from Edgar Allen Poe and thought seriously of a trained monkey being introduced.”
“There is the theory of the duplicate key—”
“Which I dismiss,” said Carver. “I am satisfied that no duplicate key was used. If a duplicate key had been procurable, Felling or Walters as you call him, would have found his way to it. He is the cleverest man in that business and he has lived on duplicate keys all his life. He must have known that it was impossible to gain admission by such a method or he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to make one. He is a specialist in that line of business, probably the finest locksmith of the underworld.”
“Then you suggest that this key was used?” Tab pointed to the table.
“I not only suggest it, but I would swear to it,” said Carver quietly. “Look!” He pulled the door open so that the light fell upon the outside keyhole. “Do you see the little blood-spots?” he asked. “That key has not only been
